Shutdown problems

Lately I've had occassional problems with games suddenly crashing to a
shutdown. The display goes to black, there is a beep similar sounding to a
modem connecting and then the power goes off. Can anybody suggest what I
should check first?
I'm using XP Pro SP2 on an AMD XP2600 w/1.5GB RAM. All drivers are current.
Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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poidog wrote:
> Lately I've had occassional problems with games suddenly crashing to a
> shutdown. The display goes to black, there is a beep similar sounding to a
> modem connecting and then the power goes off. Can anybody suggest what I
> should check first?
> I'm using XP Pro SP2 on an AMD XP2600 w/1.5GB RAM. All drivers are current.
> Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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On Tue, 19 Apr 2005 05:22:56 GMT, "poidog" <>
wrote:
>Lately I've had occassional problems with games suddenly crashing to a
>shutdown. The display goes to black, there is a beep similar sounding to a
>modem connecting and then the power goes off. Can anybody suggest what I
>should check first?
>I'm using XP Pro SP2 on an AMD XP2600 w/1.5GB RAM. All drivers are current.
>Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
>

Two places I always check are "Problem Devices" and the "Device
Manager".

In Device Manager expand each category and look for any items marked
with a black exclamation mark icon in a yellow triangle. That
indicates a problem with the item. Right click the item, select
Properties, and there should be a Troubleshoot button you can select
to hopefully correct the problem.

If you have done the above steps you should run a virus scan. I do not
understand why so many people still do not use any anti virus software.
Fair enough it may seem pricey, but at the end of the day how much did you
spend on your PC? That can be screwed over with just 1 deadly virus, and
believe me there are lots of them out there. To see more info on Anti Virus
Software, i would recommend Norton Anti Virus as you get the Virus scan AND
firewall in one... http://www.symantec.com/index.htm

If you have run the following it could be...
an overheating problem? Have you installed a newer graphics card on your
machine or is this a new game that you have recently purchased? This
depends on how new your PC is as to what you can do to find out or even fix
the problem. If you do not have any temperature measuring devices for your
motherboard, graphics card, or the inside of the tower you will simply have
to go by feel, but again if youer not sure book the PC into to your local PC
store. It may require an additional fan to be installed.

Manually checking
===============
NOT RECOMMENDED - I ADVICE TO BOOK YOUR PC INTO A CLINIC FOR A PROFESSIONAL
INSPECTION OF THE RUNNING TEMPERATURE WHEN PLAYING GAMES... THERE IS NO
POINT LEAVING YOUR SYSTEM ON ALL DAY AS IT WILL SIMPLY NOT OVERHEAT, IT HAS
TO BE CHALLENGING THE SYSTEMS PERFORMANCE SO MUST BE PLAYING A GAME.

The video card is a ATI Radeon 9600SE 128MB and was original equipment. The
only change to the machine was upgrading the RAM from 512MB to 1.5G and it
was purchased from the manufacturer to be sure it would match.

My drivers are current and it's also had a recent virus scans and spyware
sweeps. I am using Norton AV in conjunction with AntiVir PersonalEdition
Classic, Spy Sweeper and Zone Alarm firewall. This all leads me to check the
overheating problem. Do you know of any free tools that can be used to check
the temp of different components? Possibly in the BIOS?

"AJ" <> wrote in message
news:d42v6h$2ag$...
> This could be many different things causing this like g/card drivers,
> virus etc. Try a few of these steps and see how you get on...
>
> 1) Go into device manager and made sure there are no exclamation marks
> (!) by any of the devices listed. You should go through each tab in
> Device Manager.
>
> 2) Check to see your g/card drivers are the most up to date ones. If you
> have an Nvidia card go to
> http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
>
> If you have done the above steps you should run a virus scan. I do not
> understand why so many people still do not use any anti virus software.
> Fair enough it may seem pricey, but at the end of the day how much did you
> spend on your PC? That can be screwed over with just 1 deadly virus, and
> believe me there are lots of them out there. To see more info on Anti
> Virus Software, i would recommend Norton Anti Virus as you get the Virus
> scan AND firewall in one... http://www.symantec.com/index.htm
>
> If you have run the following it could be...
> an overheating problem? Have you installed a newer graphics card on your
> machine or is this a new game that you have recently purchased? This
> depends on how new your PC is as to what you can do to find out or even
> fix the problem. If you do not have any temperature measuring devices for
> your motherboard, graphics card, or the inside of the tower you will
> simply have to go by feel, but again if youer not sure book the PC into to
> your local PC store. It may require an additional fan to be installed.
>
> Manually checking
> ===============
> NOT RECOMMENDED - I ADVICE TO BOOK YOUR PC INTO A CLINIC FOR A
> PROFESSIONAL INSPECTION OF THE RUNNING TEMPERATURE WHEN PLAYING GAMES...
> THERE IS NO POINT LEAVING YOUR SYSTEM ON ALL DAY AS IT WILL SIMPLY NOT
> OVERHEAT, IT HAS TO BE CHALLENGING THE SYSTEMS PERFORMANCE SO MUST BE
> PLAYING A GAME.
>

poidog wrote:
> Lately I've had occassional problems with games suddenly crashing to a
> shutdown. The display goes to black, there is a beep similar sounding to a
> modem connecting and then the power goes off. Can anybody suggest what I
> should check first?
> I'm using XP Pro SP2 on an AMD XP2600 w/1.5GB RAM. All drivers are
> current. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Looks much like some emergency shutdown due to overheating the cpu/the gpu.
You know, these games beat the hell out of your box. Have you tried to boil
eggs on top of your box while gaming? ;-)
More seriously: check heat dissipation, fans, dust bunnies. Install a cpu
monitoring program. Get a better heatsink than the boxed one that comes
with the processor.
--
Longhorn error#4711: TCPA / NGSCP VIOLATION: Microsoft optical mouse
detected penguin patterns on mousepad. Partition scan in progress
to remove offending incompatible products. Reactivate MS software.
Linux woodpecker.homnet.at 2.6.11-mm4[LinuxCounter#295241,ICQ#4918962]

poidog wrote:
> Everything checks out in the Device Manager and the Problem Devices.
>
> The video card is a ATI Radeon 9600SE 128MB and was original equipment.
> The only change to the machine was upgrading the RAM from 512MB to 1.5G
> and it was purchased from the manufacturer to be sure it would match.
>
> My drivers are current and it's also had a recent virus scans and spyware
> sweeps. I am using Norton AV in conjunction with AntiVir PersonalEdition
> Classic, Spy Sweeper and Zone Alarm firewall. This all leads me to check
> the overheating problem. Do you know of any free tools that can be used to
> check the temp of different components? Possibly in the BIOS?
>
I don't know the type of your mainboard or the bios, but most recent boards
have some "hardware monitor" section. You will have to play until the
system shuts down, then restart into bios (most of the time it's done by
pressing DEL or ctrl-alt-esc or F2 or F10 at startup time) and quickly
watch that section. Or install a mainboard monitor program (MBM5 comes to
my mind, google will help you) which can be setup to give an alarm and pop
up in the foreground (possibly destroying your games screen) at given
thresholds. However, the simplest solution would be to take off the left
side of your pc cover and watch the cpu fan, occasionally touch it when
gaming. If it's getting seriously hot you have to take measures against
that. Keep in mind, not only the cpu may overheat, there are voltage
regulators near it, with capacitors. Watch or let watch for broken or bent
bottom plates, like in http://www.badcaps.net/

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